“But that’s not what you wanted.”
“Luckily, it’s not what my betrothed wanted either. After we were wed, when everyone was drunk and silly at our wedding celebration, we ran off to the Non together.”
“You’re married?”
She shrugged. “Not in the Non.”
“Where is your husband?”
“He’s not my husband. The only good thing I can say about him is that he helped me get to the Non, but only because it benefited him as well. He’s in Sarsaparilla. He’s a low-life, no-good thief.”
This was the best thing I’d heard all day. “Do you ever see him?”
“Not if I can help it,” she said. “Or I should say, not if he can help it. He knows I’ll shoot him if I catch him nosing around in my business.”
Finally, we exited the woods and stepped into a grassy clearing that had to be at least a few acres wide and was ringed on all sides by forest. Benny and his dragons were waiting for us, all of them nude, but standing around chatting like they were fully clothed. I was married to a shifter and I still wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to casual nudity.
Benny strode over to meet us, all his dangly bits bouncing as he walked. I really didn’t want to see or think about that part of Benny’s anatomy, but it was hard to ignore that most jiggly part of him.
Frost moved back to stand beside me and laced his fingers through mine, his body tense. He might be evolved and modern, willing to let me blaze my own trail and have as much independence as I could stand, but some primal part of him apparently still got nervous when a naked man approached me. I squeezed his hand and smiled at Frost. “He’s got nothing on you.”
“Not the point,” Frost said, his voice raspy and tense.
I might have laughed, but I didn’t think Frost would appreciate it.
One of the trolls handed Benny his pack and another troll walked over to the nude dragons and gave them their packs. Benny faced us, hands on his hips.
“We’ve traveled three miles and I don’t see any sign of these rebels we’re supposed to find. We flew a full three-hundred-yard circle around this area and searched a mile farther North and have seen nothing.”
“They’re hiding,” Vin said, only a hint of sarcasm creeping into her voice. “They’re not supposed to be easy to find.” She turned to the trolls nearest her. “They’re in an abandoned troll village. Are any of you familiar with this area?”
The trolls all shook their heads or shrugged. “I don’t know this area, don’t have any kin from here,” said the troll nearest Vin. “But troll villages are underground. If it’s abandoned, the surface building, the meeting hall for inter-species gatherings, may no longer exist. The entrance could be no more than a hole in the ground.”
“So we’ll find it,” Pippi said. She looked at me. “If Chloe thinks we should.”
I bit back the urge to growl at her mock-submission. “I agree. Let’s split into smaller groups and spread out. We’ll search for an hour, but if we don’t find anything, we’ll meet back here and come up with a plan B.”
“Look for Brackleberries,” one of the dwarves said, stepping up next to Pippi. “The trolls around here use the Brackleberries for cover.”
The dwarf, Fig, showed us what a Brackleberry bush looked like, and we began our search.
We spent the next half hour, me with Frost, Hieronymus, and Mercury, combing through dense underbrush. I was already missing the city and remembering how much I hated the country, especially the forest. I wouldn’t say I was looking forward to battling Ludwiggia, but it certainly seemed preferable to digging around in the undergrowth. Especially undergrowth with bramble bushes that had thorns the size of my thumb, technicolor flowers, and some sort of weed that exploded and covered you in stinky powder if you stepped on it. Which I had. More than once. Of course, Frost and the others had avoided the stinky powder bombs and the thorns. I hated them all, just a little, because of that.
A shout stopped our hunt and the four of us plodded through the forest to the area where the noise was coming from. It was on the far western side of the clearing, near where the woods began again. In the clearing, we picked up our pace to a jog along with others who emerged from the woods on either side of us.
We found the team who’d shouted standing next to nothing more than a slab of rock that was almost entirely hidden by grass and wildflowers. They’d shoved the rock aside to reveal stone steps descending into darkness.
“There’s no sound of anyone down there and not a flicker of light,” one of the redcaps from the discovering team said.
“There wouldn’t be,” Vin said. “They’d lay in wait until we revealed ourselves, until they had an idea—”
She jerked and fell forward. The troll standing next to her caught her before she hit the ground. But then he fell with her, hitting the ground first. I pushed through the trolls and redcaps standing around with confused expressions and bent over Vin and her rescuer to see what was wrong with them. A hair-thin filament protruded from the troll’s neck. Behind me, a redcap jerked and fell. “We’re under attack,” I yelled. “Get to the woods.”
Everyone took off for the woods except Benny and a few trolls who stayed behind to carry the ones who’d been hit. Frost and I bent to lift Vin, but something stung me right behind the ear. I reached to swat at the bug, but it was too late. I was already falling, my world going black.
CHAPTER FIVE
Many fae are unnecessarily paranoid.—Chloe Frangipani
The idea of working with the rebels unsettles my stomach, but it can’t be much worse than enduring Chloe and trying to keep her alive.—Hieronymus
“You know me, Yarborough. Why are you treating me like a prisoner?”
That sounded like Vin, anger sparking in her tone. I tried to open my eyes, but it felt like they were held closed by boulders. I tried to move, but I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. I was numb all over. Except my head, which ached with a dull throb.
“I don’t know anyone since the nightmares took over,” a squeaky male voice said. “I had to kill Missella, Vin. I stabbed her through the heart, because she’d been possessed by the nightmares.”
“So, get a healer, Yarborough, and have them check me for signs of shadows. Or trust me when I say I’m not being controlled by anyone but myself. I’m pretty sure if I was under nightmare control I wouldn’t be able to remind you of the time you pissed yourself when you encountered that sweet dryad girl in the forest.”
“It was dark and her eyes glowed red,” Yarborough said. Steps pounded against the ground. “And you’d do well to remember I’m in charge and I’ll do what I need to do to make sure you aren’t tainted.”
“So, what’s your plan then?” Vin asked. “You’re just going to keep us tied up here forever?”
“No. We’re going to carry you as far away from here as we can and leave you tied up there. Can’t take a chance you’ll lead the nightmares here to us.”
“And what’s your long-range plan?” Vin didn’t sound worried about his plan to strand us in the Rubalian wilderness. “What are you going to do to stop the nightmares? To send them back to their own realm?”
Silence reigned. I tried again to open my eyes and was more successful. I opened my left eye a slit and saw I was in a dimly lit, dirt-walled and dirt-floored room. Around me lay other immobile members of our group, all of them with wrists and ankles bound. I was sitting up, my back against the wall. Vin was also bound and sat against a wall across the room from me. A tall, inhumanly thin man stood and glared down at her. His body seemed to be in constant motion, like there were snakes slithering all over him, or he was as boneless as noodles and swaying on his feet. I’d never seen another fae like him, but there were more types of fae in Rubalia then there were animals on earth. I wondered if evolution worked faster in Rubalia, or if Rubalia had just existed longer than earth had.
“There is no plan,” Yarborough said. “Because the nightmares can’t be defeated. We’re waiting for them t
o decrease vigilance on the portals, and then we’re heading to the non.”
“You’ve always been a coward, Yarbourough. Who else have you got down here? Anyone with any backbone? I’d rather speak to them.”
Yarborough reared back and smacked Vin so hard her head bounced off the hard-packed dirt wall. It had to have hurt, but Vin didn’t stop glaring at Yarborough. “I dare you to take a shot like that at me when I’m not bound,” Vin seethed.
Next to me, a troll stirred and groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
“You won’t get the chance,” Yarborough said, his voice a jumpy, happy chirrup. I got the impression he’d been waiting for the opportunity to have the upper hand against Vin.
Vin sighed. “We’ve got weapons that will work against the nightmares and we’ve got a small army to go up against them. You can stay here and hide in your hole in the ground like the slimy coward you are, but let us go.”
Using my fairy magic, I made my hands as thin as my wrists and tried to slip them free, but the ropes constricted with my hands, tightening until I was sure my circulation would be cut off. I shifted my hands smaller and smaller, trying to move faster than the constricting ropes. Finally, the ropes tightened around my finger-tips and then slid off.
My hands tingled as blood and feeling rushed back into them. I opened my eyes wide and felt my body coming back on-line as the drugs from the dart wore off. The troll on the other side of me grunted awake, his eyes open wide, a panicked look in them. I could practically feel the adrenaline rolling off him. He strained against his bonds, but they didn’t budge.
“You aren’t worth the risk,” Yarborough screeched, not noticing what was going on behind him. I’d been ignoring his argument with Vin while I worked to free myself and had no idea what he was talking about. “I’ve never trusted you, Vin, but Missella kept you on, waiting for you to provide some useful information. Not that her waiting and her hoping ever came to anything. It was clear your loyalties were crossed then and they’re likely crossed now.”
I narrowed my feet and slipped them from the ropes around my ankles in the same way I’d freed my wrists. I leapt up and ran for Yarborough, trying to get to him before he left the room.
Unfortunately, my feet weren’t quite awake. I stumbled half-way across the room and shot forward, taking Yarborough down with an unintentional head-butt to his knees.
He grunted and fell on top of me in a tangle of spaghetti limbs and body. I tried to push him off, but those limbs were tangled around me and they tightened, like vines, every time I moved. What the hell was this guy?
One of those limbs snaked around my throat, constricting my breathing until dots appeared before my eyes.
“Claws!” Vin yelled. “Slice off his arms.”
I probably would have thought of that myself if I’d had any blood going to my brain and wasn’t just ten minutes on the other side of a drugged and comatose state. I shifted my hands to claws and swiped at the nearest viney limb. I couldn’t see what I was doing and the vines were wrapped tight around my arms, but I must have hit something, because I was suddenly free.
I coughed and gasped for air, flat on my back on the dirt floor.
“Chloe. He’s getting away. Get up. Go after him.” I heard Vin’s voice, but my body wasn’t exactly responding to brain or voice commands. I gasped in another lung-full of air and pushed to my feet, my vision receding as I gained altitude. I blinked and the fuzziness faded as my brain adjusted to my new position. “Which way?” I asked Vin.
She shook her head, her expression revealing complete disappointment. “He’s gone. Probably to get reinforcements. Just untie us.”
I used my bear claws to slice the ropes binding Vin and she helped untie the others. Most of the trolls and all the redcaps were still out, including Pippi.
“Where’s Frost?” I asked. “And Hieronymus?”
“It was chaos up there,” Vin said. “I think Frost and Hieronymus managed to escape to the woods with a few of the red caps and the trolls. They’re probably on their way to rescue us.”
I just hoped they hadn’t encountered something bigger and nastier than Yarborough and his rebels.
Tromping feet sounded against hard-packed dirt and a massive rock troll stepped into the room, a tiny woman, with iridescent, blue wings, by his side. “They’re untied?” the rock troll grumbled. “You had one job, Yarborough. One drigging job.”
The rock troll held up his hands and backed up when Vin, three woozy trolls, and I advanced on him. “I don’t want to fight you,” he said. “I just need you to stay still and let Vixia check you out. If you’re free of the nightmares, we’ll talk.”
“And we might have let her check us out,” Vin said. “Before you drugged us and tied us up down here. Forgive me if I don’t trust easily.”
“She won’t even touch you,” the rock troll said. “She’s just going to inspect your aura. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a wee pixy?”
“She can inspect us,” Vin said. “But if she makes a wrong move or touches us, we will defend ourselves.”
Vixia didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. “They’re clean,” she said. “I need to get closer to the sleeping ones.”
The rock troll smiled. “There now, she’s already finished with you lot. Can she check out the rest of your people?”
Vin and I moved to the side and Vixia stepped past us to inspect the others. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder. Indigo was also a pixy, but she wasn’t an entire foot shorter than me. She was at least over five feet, so I guessed Vixia was small because of her individual genetics and not because her species tended to be small.
“Who are you?” Vin asked the rock troll. “I know all Missella’s rebels, but I don’t know you or Vixia.”
“I’m Jerome,” the rock troll said. “There aren’t many of Missella’s old crew left. We are led by Yarborough and Lensy.”
“Yarborough and Lensy hate each other,” Vin said.
“Desperate times and all that,” a woman, with short, spiky hair and bark-covered skin, said in a raspy, but sexy, voice as she stepped into the room next to Jerome. She had to be a dryad, like Missella had been. She was almost as tall as Jerome, but she wasn’t wispy and delicate like Missella, she was muscled and the hard set to her face and the steel in her eyes gave her a tough, intimidating air. “Yarborough had information he refused to share unless he got…What do those of the Non call it? Full partnership with one hundred percent stock options?”
Vin looked as confused as I felt, her nose scrunched and her eyes narrowed. “So you agree with his plan of hiding here until you can escape to the Non? You’ve never been a coward, Lensy.”
Lensy stiffened. “I’m a strategic planner, Vin. I’m not like the rest of you who go barreling into every melee with no plan other than giving as good as you get.”
“What’s your plan, then?” I asked. “Sitting around and waiting?”
She rolled her eyes. “There are thirty-five of us here, ten of us children, and only five of us with any real fighting experience. But there are more people arriving every day. The nightmares are tough, but they aren’t very organized. I was waiting until I had an actual shot of going up against the nightmares and winning. Can you and your people give me that chance?”
“Yarborough says you have no interest in fighting the nightmares,” Vin said. “And last we heard, you were trying to overthrow Missella as leader. How do we know you didn’t kill her?”
“She didn’t kill her,” Jerome said. “Yarborough killed her when Vixia identified her as nightmare spawn.”
Vin looked at me, eyebrows high. We appeared to have reached a stalemate with a coward and a power-hungry opportunist. I shrugged, because I didn’t really see that we had any other options. “Do you know how we can get to the fairy palace without being seen or waylaid?”
Lensy’s face scrunched and bark popped out of her skin near her shoulders. I wondered if her nose would grow when she lied. “I don’t know
all the trails and underground passages as well as Missella did. But I came of age in these woods and I can get you to the fairy palace. I might even be able to do it without being seen.”
“We can’t trust anyone,” Pippi said. I spun to see her sitting up, her eyes bloodshot and almost pure red, her hair a frizzy mess, and her cheeks pink from her forced sleep. She pushed herself to her feet and made her way over to us in a twisting, drunken walk. “And we definitely can’t trust you.” She tried to poke Lensy in the chest, but poked the air about two feet to the right of the dryad.
Lensy’s eyes widened. “Evangeline? What are you doing here? You swore you’d never come back to Rubalia.”
“And you just told these good people that you grew up in these woods, when we both know you grew up much, much farther south.”
The wood on Lensy’s shoulders rose up the sides of her neck and fringed her jaw like a beard. “I said I came of age in these woods. Among my people, we come of age when we are ready to wed, at twenty-eight.”
I narrowed my eyes at Lensy. I wasn’t sure she’d been deliberately trying to mislead us, but she hung out with enough other species that I would expect her to understand what her words meant to us. “Exactly how long have you lived in this part of Rubalia?”
She steeled her shoulders. “I lived here six months before I decided to join Missella’s rebels. And I was with her, traveling Rubalia, for three years. That’s long enough to know my way around.”
“Is there anyone in your group, anyone among the refugees, who knows this area better than you?”
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6) Page 9